“What disgusting equivocation,” Miss Trevor interrupted.  “He asked me point blank to marry him, and of course I consented.  He has never mentioned to me that he wished to break the engagement, and I wouldn’t have broken it.”

I felt like a newsboy in a gallery,—­I wanted to cheer.  And the Celebrity kicked the stones and things.

“Who would have thought,” she persisted, “that the author of The Sybarites, the man who chose Desmond for a hero, could play thus idly with the heart of woman?  The man who wrote these beautiful lines:  ’Inconstancy in a woman, because of the present social conditions, is sometimes pardonable.  In a man, nothing is more despicable.’  And how poetic a justice it is that he has to marry me, and is thus forced to lead the life of self-denial he has conceived for his hero.  Mr. Crocker, will you be my attorney if he should offer any objections?”

The humor of this proved too much for the three of us, and Miss Trevor herself went into peals of laughter.  Would that the Celebrity could have seen his own face.  I doubt if even he could have described it.  But I wished for his sake that the earth might have kindly opened and taken him in.

“Marian,” said Miss Trevor, “I am going to be very generous.  I relinquish the prize to you, and to you only.  And I flatter myself there are not many girls in this world who would do it.”

“Thank you, Irene,” Miss Thorn replied gravely, “much as I want him, I could not think of depriving you.”

Well, there is a limit to all endurance, and the Celebrity had reached his.

“Crocker,” he said, “how far is it to the Canadian Pacific?”

I told him.

“I think I had best be starting,” said he.

And a moment later he had disappeared into the woods.

We stood gazing in the direction he had taken, until the sound of his progress had died away.  The shock of it all had considerably muddled my brain, and when at last I had adjusted my thoughts to the new conditions, a sensation of relief, of happiness, of joy (call it what you will), came upon me, and I could scarce restrain an impulse to toss my hat in the air.  He was gone at last!  But that was not the reason.  I was safe from O’Meara and calumny.  Nor was this all.  And I did not dare to look at Miss Thorn.  The knowledge that she had planned and carried out with dignity and success such a campaign filled me with awe.  That I had misjudged her made me despise myself.  Then I became aware that she was speaking to me, and I turned.

“Mr. Crocker, do you think there is any danger that he will lose his way?”

“No, Miss Thorn,” I replied; “he has only to get to the top of that ridge and strike the road for Saville, as I told him.”

We were silent again until Miss Trevor remarked: 

“Well, he deserved every bit of it.”

“And more, Irene,” said Miss Thorn, laughing; “he deserved to marry you.”